Kolkata: Almost every central bank of the world has been raising gold reserves over the past few years, which has triggered a phenomenal rise in the price of the yellow metal across the world. But what Bank of France has done with it is quiet spectacular. France has a huge quantity of gold lying on US soil which belongs to the French central bank. But instead of transporting the metal from the US to France, the country’s central bank or Banque de France has taken a different route and sold 129 tons of non-standard gold bars, which belonged to yesteryears, at the high prices prevailing between July 2025 and January 2026. Thus the price realised was before the current price decline began. These gold bars were stored in New York.
Avoiding a hazardous process
The strategy to sell out the gold at the peak of prices and pocleting the gain and avoiding the process of refining and bringing the metal to Paris helped the bank of France a lot. An Analytics Insight report also described the process as a modernisation effort. The sellout allowed a realisation of €12.8 billion. It helped the bank to post a net profit of €8.1 billion in 2025, which marked a remarkable jump from the €7.7-billion loss in 2024. France now holds its entire gold reserve in Paris and its amounts to about 2,437 tonnes.
According to reports, governor of the central bank François Villeroy de Galhau said the decision was practical and not political. He also mentioned that upgrading older bars to modern standards held abroad is more difficult than sourcing modern bars in Europe.
Indian gold held abroad
India too holds a lot of gold abroad. Data from September last year show that RBI holds about 290.37 tons of gold abroad. These are mostly held in the vaults of the Bank of England and the Bank for International Settlements headquartered in Basel, Switzerland.
The French move has triggered rethinks in Germany too. Germany also holds a part of its sovereign gold reserves in the US and some experts have said that this gold should be brought back to their country.